Postal kiosks are know devices whereby one is able to post mail in a convenient fashion. Such kiosks are designed to receive the mail, weigh the mail, inform the user as to the amount of postage due and dispense the mail upon the user providing correct payment. Most kiosks have convenience items such as currency and coin changers. Although kiosks have been known for a long time, they have not been used extensively. An example of such kiosks is the Mail-O-Mat Mailing Machine produced by Pitney Bowes Inc. as far back as the 40's. This kiosk is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,290,920. Since that time, a number of kiosks have been introduced and proposed, but none has achieved wide spread commercial success. One of the difficulties of prior kiosks may be that they have been attempting to achieve too much. For mechanisms to receive mail pieces of various sizes, weights and thickness's and having the mechanism of the kiosk determine the postage is not a simple task. As a result of attempting to achieve these functions, the prior kiosks have proven to be rather expensive and required a relatively large amount of service.
There is a need for a kiosk that is not only relatively simple in construction, but also serves the function of providing a degree of interaction with the user of the kiosk to render the same more interesting to use. In particular, it would be desirable to have a kiosk in an area such as a tourist area wherein finished mail pieces, such as postcards, can be conveniently mailed therefrom. Such a kiosk should have a limited number of functions to avoid complexity- Another advantage would be to have a kiosk that applies postage in accordance with a bar code on the mail piece. A further advantage would be to have a kiosk specifically designed to receive finished mail pieces and have the ability to determine correct orientation of the finished mail piece.